I love to read books about books, secret books, lost books, magic books, booksellers, bookstores. Any story where a book changes the character's life. But this interest often leads me to stories where the beginning is about a lost/found secret coded book! Hooray! And continues into a story about mass murder or horrible child abuse. Such is the case with this book. I loved it. Loved the characters and their own love of books. I loved how the books they read changed their lives and tied them together. Books being forbidden and making them even more tantalizing. But it is a hard story. Can't say I loved it. It was so sad. So many many things are lost. There is hope at the end. But it is a gauzy veil over the wounds of those losses. It was very real.